Anger in Haiti over misspent aid, six years after the 2010 earthquake

I saw some of the corruption in the States. A group of Haitians started showing up at used goods auctions in coastal Florida. After a while it was found out they were using relief funds, funneled through contractors in Haiti, to come to the States and fill up shipping containers to send back to Haiti. Then under the guise of buying relief goods, they would put these items in shops and sell them to people. So basically getting their goods using funds (almost all clothing and electronics), ship it using funds, then sell it at exorbitant prices because many of those things that are obsolete here are not in Haiti.

They are raising awareness! Your now aware there are poor hungry people somewhere on an entire continent! See, charity did its job and someone one day may do something other then screaming look at this person guys!

Better to start donating condoms and birth control then money. I mean to say that they know the conditions they live in yet they still bring children into the world, and not just one child but as many as humanly possible. Next generation repeats the process till they all start killing each other off in the name of warlords, religions etc. While more then half of the population tries to migrate to other places where the process is repeated there. If you look it is from afar it's like a cancer that is eating itself out and then moves on to the healthy cells and so on. This goes to all the people of the world who are doing this, like in the USA where we have the bible belt rednecks who are doing the same exact thing.

It's true, years ago when schools used to have us do all kinds of fundraising events for cancer or the homeless or whatever they had us doing we would find out that sometimes the money was being used for something completely different. Now if I want to do something charitable I'll donate my time to an animal shelter or soup kitchen/homeless shelter where I can directly help those that need it.

You could always set up a donation fund of your own. Look for someone needy, truly needy of it and then once you reach let's say a $5K point give it to them. Or rent an apartment for them, etc. Or if you're like me once it gets to $5K, go to Vegas and put it on black or red.

There's plenty of homeless people in every city. Learning where they sleep and whether they'd like it if you bring them food from time to time is a more effective method to help than most.

Very few people will ever put together a lot of money and take it to some unknown person. Plus it takes time and you don't know if it will help them or get them stabbed and robbed, or dying of an overdose.

I am literally in Haiti as I write this, and things seem calmer right now because of the postponed election (usually there are demonstrations regarding corruption). However none of the "aid" that this country received can be seen anywhere. Wealth is incredibly undistributed and it is quite sad seeing so many people basically sleep in garbage...

A lot of people make money on vast, worldwide fundraising campaigns like this. I have worked for 15 non-profit organizations, fundraising for them. Some of them were national, many were international. The usual percentage of the money that goes to fundraising is typically around 55-80%. When those costs are cut down by mass donations, the administrative people end up cutting all kinds of deals with contractors, who take a huge cut and then hire massive business who take a huge cut, who then hire small business that do the ground work (the administrations of which take a huge cut), who pay nice wages to the people doing the ground work.

Bureaucracy is crooked in itself. Each person and organization involved is only minorly crooked, greedy, and deceitful, but when it gets to the end of the chain you end up with grossly ineffective results and thousands of people with well-payed jobs who are from wealthy countries.

One organization that helps the poorest places well is PLAN International. They actually hire people from the places they operate. A majority of their employees are from the communities they help.

Keep in mind, some work requires incredible amounts of overhead, and it depends on how you calculate it. For example, I've worked with a non-profit that works with underserved children. The amount of stuff we had to do just to stay legal was incredible. That doesn't count as program work, it's really considered overhead, but the costs for the actual program was very low. It was just red tape - and not red tape we had created, but had to battle through.

It's kind of mind-blowing. Political campaigns (ie: for politicians, the environment, policy/law change) are the worst. But that's sort of how they get things done. It's the charities that say they're spending the money helping people that it's the most deceitful and wrong in my opinion.

Plenty of blame to go around. people thought, based on their commercials, that donating to the red cross meant that the red cross would spend money to fix some things up in Haiti. People now feel duped when they learned that the money was wasted in a variety of ways, some directly by the red cross, some by the Haitian govt, some by contracted business.......

To blame anyone one person or group is nonsense, but you really can't defend the Red Cross for taking in that much money and having nothing lasting to show for it. At best it proves incompetence.

Not to sound mean, but maybe Haitians should take the lead role in rebuilding their country instead of begging the world for donations?

The time for that possibility passed long, long ago. Haiti is a textbook example of cognitive flight, aka "brain drain." Literally everybody with the smarts or means to do so noped the fuck out of Haiti in favor of anywhere-else decades ago.

Same thing goes for a lot of shitholes in the world. Why work your ass off trying to fix a fucked up homeland as Haiti when you can hop on a boat or plane and improve your life simply by being in virtually any other country on Earth?

its been 6 years, there's no justifiable reason for them STILL to need aid, rebuild your fucking country and start taking care of yourselves Haiti, sooner or later, the U.N will collapse, and when it does your aid goes with it, and if you can't live without aid, you're already dead.

Haiti is poorly governed, poorly run, poorly managed... seriously, I don't even know if it should be it's own country. They don't even learn from their neighbours who have become an interesting and unique republic. they are even on the same Island and the Haitians are still simply in a messed up place. I am willing to bet their state house is still a shambles, untouched. Laziest ass country in the world pretty much. All out of sympathy for the shiftless.

They're considered the poorest, least developed, and most corrupt nation in the entire hemisphere. It's... sad, our neighbors have a million more people but less than 1/8th of our economy. It's sad all around.

The Dominicans haven't fucked around. There have been pogroms and massacres. You don't want to be a Haitian in Dominican. Although you don't want to be a Haitian in Haiti either, so, sucks to be Haitian.

I mean, it's pretty common, there's still a lot of hate between each other, mostly in the rural areas. Near the border some Haitians claimed that their side of the island was bigger, pretty much 80% bigger, and that the border reached all the way to Pico Duarte (the highest mountain, deep in the countryside), and noone payed attention, because a local's ramblings should not always be taken seriously. So no, it was not official policy.

Every time a Haitian dies in the DR, even if he's a murderer, there's a scandal, and racial tensions rise, our government would not do such a foolish thing.

It does. There are massive amounts of Haitian immigrants in the Dominican. They are, however, implementing a quite extensive - some would say too extensive - deportation program as we speak. It caused quite some ruckus here just a year ago.

The Haitian government banned the import of tens of commodities. Yes, you read that right, the poorest country in the hemisphere sanctioned itself to hurt the Dominican economy. The ban is still ongoing...

But before that, the US and the Haitian people living in the US accused the Dominican Republic of being racists and xenophobes and threatened to boycott the Dominican tourism. Tourism is a major player in our economy, providing 60% of our USDs, so they tried to "hit us where it hurts". The dominican government backed down after the US and the OAS (Organization of American States) threatened to put even more pressure.

The constitution was amended on 26 January 2010. The amendment broadened the definition of the 2004 migration law – which excluded from citizenship children born to individuals that were "in transit" - to include "non-residents" (including individuals with expired residency visas and undocumented workers)

So we made anchor babies illegal. That's our prerogative as a sovereign state. We are not the first nor the only country in doing this. Jus soli is rare outside of the American continent.

If the American government is so concerned about this, why don't they give citizenship to Haitians. That's an idea.

For four generations Banesa Blemi's family, descendants of Haitian immigrants, put down roots as low-wage sugar cane cutters in their adopted homeland, and came to consider themselves Dominicans.

Then, last month the country's Constitutional Court issued a decision effectively denationalizing Blemi and her family, along with an estimated 250,000 fellow immigrants born after 1929.

"I have no country. What will become of me?" said Blemi, 27, standing with relatives outside the family's wooden shack near La Romana, the heart of the Dominican Republic's sugar cane industry and one of the Caribbean's top tourist resorts.

"We are Dominicans - we have never been to Haiti. We were born and raised here. We don't even speak Creole," she said, referring to Haiti's native tongue.

The September 23 court ruling retroactively denies Dominican nationality to anyone born after 1929 who does not have at least one parent of Dominican blood, under a constitutional clause declaring all others to be either in the country illegally or "in transit."

There is one thing I messed up and it was that source I quoted saying that the law in question was just introduced in 2010. That was wrong. Apparently it has been in the constitution many times since the year 1844. Due to the amendment and changes in the constitution, the Supreme Court of Justice did a review and determined that it applies since 1929 to present day.

What makes you think this hasn't spilled over into the eastern side? Remember the news last year? How DR wanted to deport thousands of haitian immigrants? How the entire world condemned that action? How the US threatened to boycott the dominican tourism unless we backed down?

The thing is, yes it does spill into this side, many people want to escape the crushing poverty of Haiti.

Now... in terms of poverty and development, the Dominican Republic has always been wealthier, because of geography, because of more infrastructure, because... lots of reasons. In terms of corruption, the DR was considered the third most corrupt country in Latin America (the first being lovely Haiti). We're not so bad now, not because the government is more transparent, but because some other countries Venezuela are more corrupt now in comparison.

The entire island is poor, because our economies rely on remittances and tourism for foreign currency, and food and mining to feed foreign industries.

Now if you're asking why the spilling isn't more overt, well the answer is pretty simple. The Dominican Republic got its independence from Haiti! Since then, we try to keep Haiti contained, and every time Haiti becomes more aggressive, or we get more immigrants than usual or something happens that could potentially hurt the Dominican economy, tensions rise and we're forced to negotiate, usually maintaining the status quo. And so, Haiti stays poor and the DR stays less poor. Both countries were once ruled by dictators who destroyed all opposition without mercy, causing a huge human capital flight. Add that to the corruption and... yeah, the development pretty much stops.

If you refuse to help yourself. If you refuse to get organized. If you refuse to pick yourself up and get moving then that is 100% on you. In Haiti's case, their failure as a nation is 100% on them. they cannot expect everybody to do everything for them because there is no value in giving away that and way more value in them having earned it themselves.

It is sad. For them. I am not crying on their lazy, do nothing, shiftless, corrupt ass.

I remember soon after the earthquake, some Haitians thought they heard someone under a pile a rock. They just pointed to the pile, waiting for others (I think they were Chileans) to do the heavy work. Not one of them helped. It was a very sad thing to watch.

This was common. The 22nd MEU cancelled their post deployment leave to go there and it was just a fucking cease pool of lazy pieces of shit that only were in it for themselves.

And people will scream about colonialism or racism or SOMETHING that caused their economy to suck and their government to suck, but there is no excuse for the wide spread societal failures that this nation is. That is on them, they can't blame anyone but themselves for living in squalor. It wouldn't be perfect, but they don't do a damn thing for their own society.

By the way, they massacred a lot of Dominicans also. Which it still fuel the resentment against Haitians. You need to remember that Dominicans got their independence from Haiti and their rule was much worse and barbaric than any colonial power.

Moses should be considered one of the greatest terrorists in human history. Literal baby killer.

Yes, Moses was a horrible, horrible man.

And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp; and Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle; and Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying with him; but all the women-children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

-Numbers 31:13-18

That's Moses telling his people to kill everyone from this tribe--except virgin girls, who are to be enslaved and raped.

I doubt the Jews of today would appreciate you calling them genocidal child murderers/rapists. I hardly believe they, or Christians for that matter, want to reenact Moses' genocides any more than Americans who revere George Washington want to reenact slavery.

What about us? We were enemies before, but right now we're pretty much indifferent. After the earthquake, the DR donated an enormous amount of food, supplies and money to Haiti... and it all disappeared. Corruption knows no bounds.

Now, Haiti indeed chopped down almost every tree in their side (only 2% of the country is covered by forest, the protected parks), and many other questionable things (after declaring independence, they committed a genocide on white people, and... destroyed all the economic infrastructure).

The entire world has tried to help them, and we keep donating and trading and investing... and, in the end, it depends on them, the corruption in Haiti is unbelievable. Hopefully it will change soon.

The thing is... the haitians cut so many trees, they have no trees to cut... in their side of the border, so they just cross the border to chop down trees in this side. Yeah, they cross the border to cut trees down, so they can cook back home. The environmental effects are enormous here in DR, but criticizing haitians is seen as racist for some reason.

Your forgetting the part where the dirt that was secured by the trees, got washed away with the rain causing the ocean all around Haiti to get dirty, causing the the fish to flee, therefore decimating the fisherman business and ability to access food via ocean.

Brazil was the last country to own slaves, they're doing better. In fact the majority of north and South America had slaves, but they're doing better. The other side of the island had slaves, and they're doing much better.

You know Haiti elected a leader who " The plot failed and Duvalier subsequently ordered a nationwide search for Barbot and his fellow conspirators. During the search, Duvalier was told that Barbot had transformed himself into a black dog, which prompted Duvalier to order that all black dogs in Haiti be put to death"

Who cares? The whole world by proxy practices slavery when they eat chocolate or buy shoes or clothes for bargain prices or what have you. Outright and indentured slavery is alive and well through out the world. Even the oldest cultures on the planet practice it within their borders. Blaming the countries that have developed is ridiculous because it is those countries that create law against those very practices.

You should see the satellite photos of the island that is split between Haiti on the western side and the Dominican republic on the eastern side - Haitian mismanagement of their land as led to catastrophic soil erosion and aridification, in total contrast to the DR

This article is basically one long quote from Brian Concannon, executive director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. It is one person's opinion. His main complaint is that the Haitian people weren't consulted enough. I trust international experts more than the Haitian people, so while it is a bit rude I suppose, it hardly counts as proof of misspent aid. I'd like to hear other opinions before making up my mind.

I remember reading on reddit months ago that the issue about Red Cross building homes was related to laws regarding land ownership in Haiti. Something about the laws meant that land ownership in the nation is totally screwed up, and they had multiple people claiming to own the land they were trying to build on.

The only condemning part of that article is that they spent 6,5% more of their budget on 'programming support and coordination' as stated in their own guidelines. When you go over by such an amount you should be transparent in your spending in that regard.

There is nothing in that article from which you can adequately make out that they did a bad job in Haiti. People have to understand that big public projects in fragile and unstable situations are hard. Governments of first world countries get smack about that spending and coordination all the time. A non-sovereign entity working in emergency and post-emergency situations is of course going to be highly inefficient in their relief practices in hindsight. That is a part of humanitarian relief actions and a fact that we should live with. They can only do their best and people and people should critical reflect that of course but you see a lot of people with unrealistic expectations.

They built 6 houses, but repaired countless more did they not. I find it weird when people leave out the redeeming parts of the story. Not to mention the red cross mandate is never long term and deals more with health care, not house building.

I always wonder when these situations arise, WHO handles the money, how capable are they, how corrupt are they, and does the money actually get to those who need it? Most of the time I feel it's lucky to be a mixed bag.

If you want to get involved with a group to do humanitarian aid, don't go to Haiti. It will be the only time you do humanitarian aid.

They will just sit there, some completely healthy and well fed, watching kids trapped under things they could easily move, and not give a shit. They will bum rush the American military for aid and not share it unless they are selling it for money or sex with the recipients daughter.

And this is a significant portion of them, not a 10% kind of this. This country blows, the people blow, and there's no reason to help them. Let them help themselves. This is like feeding an animal and now they can't feed themselves at this point.

The American Red Cross raised more than half a billion dollars to bring relief to Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake there, but it grossly overstated what the money bought.... it actually only built six permanent homes, according to a report by ProPublica and NPR.

The Red Cross built only 6 homes in Haiti after the earthquake. The American Red Cross alone received around $500 million in donations and originally pledged to build thousands of homes but all that money was stolen and misspent. It's a shame what happened. Fuck the Red Cross for deceiving millions of people. http://time.com/3908457/red-cross-six-homes-haiti/